_Of the primary Seat of a Pestilence; where,
by the Way, is considered the Nature of
the Spirits, and their Infection in an
humane Body from Poison._
IN Order to put an End to the Controversies about the Seat of a
Pestilence, which have from Antiquity even to this Day been warmly
maintained, many Authors putting the Heart for the Principle of Life and
Death, some the Brain, and others the Stomach, Lungs, or Liver: It will be
necessary here to discover the immediate Residence of the pestilential
_Seminium_. Since therefore the above-mentioned _Aura_, according to
Hypothesis, is very subtile and spirituous, for that Reason there must
necessarily be some conformable Property in the Matter which is fit to
receive it; as therefore there is not in the whole humane Machine any
Subject more apposite, and capable of its Union, than the animal Spirits,
we must fix its Residence there. But because I am sensible what Objections
this Opinion lies open to, with some Persons, who may not conceive how an
immediate Infection of the Spirits is communicable to the Viscera, and
all Parts of the Body, it will be necessary to go thro’ this Matter in a
very particular Manner, by enquiring;
_FIRST_, What are the Spirits concerning which we are here speaking?
_SECONDLY_, What is that Disposition of Spirits which makes them fit to
receive the pestilential Impression? And,
_THIRDLY_, After what Manner the vitiated Spirits can affect the whole
Body with Disorders?
TO this Purpose we must know, that the Spirits are the most thin and
subtile Particles of the Aliment and other Juices, raised to the utmost
Perfection and Volatility by the innate Heat, and the nitro-aerial Spirit,
to serve in the Operations of the Mind, and all the Purposes of the animal
OEconomy.
THE Matter whence the Spirits are generated is the Chyle, and their
Restauration, Confirmation, and Vigour, from the Recruits of Food, as is
their Languor, Prostration, and utter Extinction from the Want of it; so
that howsoever they were first generated in the original, they owe their
Conservation and Vitality to the Nourishment continually brought in; and
although in a State of perfect Health _they_ are never changed by _that_,
yet they continually act upon that after various Ways, bringing it from a
crude, recrementicious State, into a noble Juice, or rich spiritual
Balsam, retaining its ideal Character: And hence it comes about, that
although there is a daily Waste of Spirits, there is no Want, because
Nature is continually, while Things are in Health, making more; insomuch
that after a due Constitution of Spirits is obtained, they of themselves
are the main Efficients in making more, as one Light is kindled by
another, and as the Blood it self is the chief Instrument in
Sanguification, or making more Blood.
IT is a Matter indeed of much more Difficulty to determine, how Particles
from a gross Origin, should be raised to so great Volatility and Fineness;
but this is very certain, that when they are elaborated in the most
perfect Manner, they exceed even the Light and Activity of the Sun-Beams;
and the brighter and more active they are, the better do they perform
their Offices in the OEconomy, as from their Efficiency is procured a
State of Health and Vigour both in Body and Mind.
IT is of no great Moment to enquire, what Quantity of Spirit is necessary
for the Conservation and Support of an humane Body, so that we do but know
they partake of the Source from whence they are generated, insomuch that
they are more or less perfect, according to the greater or lesser Degree
of Purity in their productive Juices.
BUT I must here acknowledge my self diffident in that Opinion of the
Spirits being prepared of a different Nature for particular Parts, for
according to the Influences of the Mind, and the Contiguity, Rectitude, or
Consent of the Vessels, they are by a voluntary Act determined the same
into this or that Limb or Part: Which is manifest enough in the Prick of a
Needle, or a venomous Bite, from the great Affluence of Spirits to that
Part; I have therefore no Notion of a continued Emanation of Spirits, but
that on such Occasions they are called, by the Sensation upon the affected
Part, from the nervous Origin where they are elaborated.
_SECONDLY_, It sometimes happens that the Spirits degenerate from their
native Purity, as also at others that they prove abortive, in not arriving
to their utmost Maturity, whereby they lie more open to foreign
Impressions of Distemperature.
BUT when the juices, or common Promptuary from whence the Spirits are
generated, is not uniform, genuine, and perfect in kind, it is impossible
that Spirits should be made from it in any tolerable Perfection; for one
may as well pretend to wash a Brick, or draw clear Water from a foul
Spring, as expect pure and natural Spirits from a corrupt and vitiated
Chyle; although even when the Chyle is in right Order, there may various
Errors happen in the Generation of Spirits, as from too great an Heat
agitating the Blood in a preternatural Manner, or from an imperfect or
unequal Separation of Particles, or from too much Cold causing an
Intermixture of Crudities; and again, although the Spirits are duly
elaborated, yet they may run into irregular Motions, and be the Occasion
of many Disorders: But what is most to the Purpose, they may sometimes
also receive a Taint from external Impressions.
AND this Aptitude, or Propensity of the Spirits to receive a pestilential
Taint, is manifest from their fiery, or rather saline Nature, for on
Account of that Subtilty which they acquire thereby, do they more
naturally attract the contagious _Aura_, than Bodies more gross and heavy:
For as these Spirits, as before observed, are nitrous, and inflammable, by
their Similitude to a pestilential _Aura_, they not only are fitted to
receive, but even attract it, and provoke it into Union; as the Snuff of a
Candle just blown out, if it is not too far off, will by an Affinity of
Qualities be soon rekindled by another lighted one at some Distance; and
how much soever the poisonous Qualities of the pestilential _Effluvia_ may
be destructive of the animal Spirits, yet there is nothing more certain,
than that their Taint is very easily impressed upon them.
AFTER the pestilential Poison is thus received by the Spirits, it is
impossible to express the fatal Consequences, and the cruel Havock that is
made in the whole OEconomy; for the same Instruments which before were
aery, lucid, and like the Rays of the Sun, immediately become vapid, dark,
and useless, neither able to invigorate the Constitution, nor defend it
against the Contagion.
_THIRDLY_, Having briefly passed over these Matters, it remains that we
shew by what Steps the humane Frame comes to be disordered by this
pestilential Invasion; and in Order to this, I know not a more fatal
Circumstance in Nature than to have the very Guards and tutelary
Preservers of Life, turn, as it were, Deserters and Betrayers. For there
is nothing more manifest, than that the whole Compage, and its several
Parts, run into Decay as soon as the pestilential Taint takes Place; for
immediately upon the first Seizure, the whole Effort of Nature, as at
_Rome_ when _Hannibal_ was at their Gates, is recollected against the
Enemy, as sensible that all is at Stake, but being unequal to the
Conflict, they retreat, and are taken Prisoners, leaving the whole Body
defenceless. Hence the Infection runs through all the Blood, whereby the
Heart and Lungs are principal Sufferers. Hence such a Corruption of the
nutritive Fluids, that the whole nervous System is disturbed, the burning
Heat of the _Pancreas_ produces the most extream Sickness, and hence
follows such a Depravation of the whole Machine, that all the vital
Faculties cease to act, and Death closes the fatal Scene.
BUT I do not at all see how such a noble Part as the Heart, should be
first affected by any particular specifick Quality in the Poison of a
Plague, to affect that more than any other; as if it was so frightful, as
some would have it, to attack the Principles of Life at once; for the
Heart seems at first to be affected chiefly from the Multiplicity of
Vessels, and the great Crowd of Circulation that Way, giving Opportunity
for the Venom sooner to arrive thither; concerning which we shall have
Occasion to say more under that Head of Symptoms.
UPON the strong, presumptive Proofs therefore that the pestilential Poison
chiefly resides in the Spirits, we cannot but much admire at the Weakness
of those, who expect to detect its Nature and Cause from what they can
find on the Dissection of morbid Bodies, and such like Circumstances: For
a very noted Person, and one of exquisite Skill in Anatomy, although he
himself at last fell in the general Calamity, affirmed, that the Seat of
the last Pestilence was in the extream Angles of the _Plexus Choroides_,
towards the _Cerebellum_, because he had found a small Vesicle there;
others have observed the Lungs to have been marked with the Tokens of
Infection; others report the Heart to have been tumefied, and burnt as it
were, to a Coal; whereas it is plain, that these Parts are only so many
Fields of Battle, where the Spirits and the Infection contend it with each
other; Nor will any one, who rightly considers these Things, wonder, that
such Marks of Devastation should every where be left by so cruel an Enemy.
THEREFORE, although it should be granted that the most obvious and open
Tokens of a Pestilence are from a spiritual and an invisible Cause, and
whose Effects may perhaps sometimes be laid open to Sight, yet I have no
Intention to discourage anatomical Dissections as a needless Trouble, for
by such Light, Medicine is recovered from the Reproach of Conjecture; but
when Bodies are opened which have been destroyed by such subtile Agents as
here spoke of, there is no Confidence to be given from thence to the
Nature of the Disease; and those who have been most knowing in the Nature,
Use, and Disorders of the Spirits, very well can direct how to recover
those Disorders, and avoid future Inconveniencies by immediate Application
thereunto.
AND Lastly, to conclude this Doctrine concerning the Spirits Infection,
this irrefragable Argument may be produced from the Intention of Cure; for
I have experienced by more than a thousand Instances, that the more
cardiack and alexipharmick Medicines are subtile and spirituous, the more
certainly do they encounter the pestilential Poison with Success; whereas,
on the contrary, those Medicines which are coarser and slower of
Exertion, do little or no Good. But this we refer to the curative Part
hereafter in another Section.